How New York can get on track to meet its big clean energy goals

After the reelection of former President Donald Trump, clean energy advocates across the country are preparing for a White House that will no doubt pursue aggressive rollbacks of climate policies and further expand fossil-fuel production.

Now more than ever, states will need to step up and pursue climate efforts on their own to ​“ensure continued progress toward clean energy,” said Caroline Spears, executive director of the advocacy group Climate Cabinet.

Few states are as important as New York, which is large, Democrat-controlled — and already committed to ambitious clean energy goals. In 2019, the state passed the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA), which pledged to reach 70 percent renewable energy by 2030 and net-zero emissions by 2050.

“New York State can continue to lead without federal support or federal oversight,” said Mandy DeRoche, deputy managing attorney at the advocacy group Earthjustice. ​“We’ll continue our progress regardless, and that will happen in every state no matter what.”

But so far, the Empire State is falling behind on its climate goals. Across a slew of initiatives under New York’s 2019 climate law, regulators are missing key rulemaking deadlines. According to a July report from the state, New York will likely miss its landmark clean energy target for 2030. Right now, it’s on track to get just 53 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by that date, far short of 70 percent.

The report mostly blamed external economic factors, including supply-chain disruptions and high interest rates that led to a spate of major renewable project cancellations. Another issue is skyrocketing energy demand, largely driven by new data centers for crypto mining and AI, as well as microchip manufacturing facilities and the rise in electric vehicles and appliances.

Environmental advocates argue that faltering political will contributes just as much, if not more, to the state’s lackluster progress. Governor Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, has expressed ambivalence over meeting looming clean energy targets.

“The costs have gone up so much I now have to say, ​‘What is the cost on the typical New York family?’” Hochul said in a recent TV interview. ​“The goals are still worthy. But we have to think about the collateral damage of these decisions.”

Missing the 2030 deadline would jeopardize many of the state’s other climate goals, including achieving 100 percent zero-emissions energy by 2040 and shuttering ​“peaker” fossil-gas plants that disproportionately spew toxic pollutants into low-income communities and communities of color, in addition to emitting large amounts of planet-warming carbon dioxide.

But missing these goals is far from inevitable. From raising energy procurement targets to leaning on public power agencies, climate and legal experts say that there’s still plenty of ways New York can make good on its clean energy pledge.

“We’re not ready to say we can’t meet the 2030 goal,” said DeRoche. ​“Of course, there are obstacles, but the messaging and the approach from the state should be, ​‘This is a statutory obligation, and we will do everything in our power to meet it.’”

How New York could get back on track

On some level, New York’s struggles come down to a straightforward problem: The state doesn’t have enough existing or upcoming renewable energy projects to meet its goals. 

About 30 percent of the state’s electricity currently comes from renewable sources, mostly from upstate hydropower plants built many decades ago.

One bright spot is that New York has already outpaced its 6-gigawatt goal for rooftop and community solar — but its targets for utility-scale solar, wind, and battery storage projects, which make up the bulk of its clean energy plan, remain well off-track.

To help solve this, DeRoche and her team at Earthjustice argue in public comments to state energy regulators that New York should vastly increase its renewable energy procurement targets, which set guidelines for how much clean power the state should purchase from private developers. State agencies have determined that they would need to purchase about 14,000 gigawatt hours each year for the next three years to meet the 2030 deadline, yet have recommended procuring only 5,600 gigawatt hours per year.

“The Draft Review provides no basis for setting the target so low,” her team wrote, arguing that state agencies should reevaluate how feasible it would be to procure a higher volume.

New clean energy construction should be prioritized in downstate New York, DeRoche adds, a region that houses most of the state’s population yet relies heavily on fossil fuels compared with the largely hydro- and nuclear-powered upstate areas. The state will also need to address transmission and interconnection backlogs that make it harder to connect new power generation to the grid. Earlier this year, lawmakers passed the RAPID Act to expedite that process for clean energy projects and transmission lines.

Some activists argue that the state itself should take a leading role to develop more clean energy.

Last year, an amendment to the state budget granted the New York Power Authority the ability to build, own, and operate renewable energy projects for the first time. Organizers at the grassroots coalition Public Power New York say that government leaders have yet to capitalize on the change, commonly referred to as the Build Public Renewables Act. In October, NYPA released its first strategic plan for developing renewable energy projects, proposing the installation of 3.5 gigawatts of new clean energy in the next several years.

“This is only the first tranche of NYPA renewables projects,” the report said, with potentially ​“further projects for consideration.”

Andrea Johnson, an organizer with the New York City chapter of Democratic Socialists of America, a member group of Public Power New York, called that number ​“measly.” Public Power New York is rallying for the authority to commit to 15 gigawatts of new clean power by 2030, an amount based on research commissioned by the group.

Expanding clean power at a faster rate would fulfill NYPA’s responsibilities under last year’s expanded authority, which calls on it to build projects when the state falls short on its climate mandates, Johnson said. ​“When the private sector fails — and the private sector is failing — the state needs to step in and actually fill the gap.”

Leveraging NYPA can also allow New York to meet its climate goals at a lower cost, Johnson said. As a nonprofit, public institution, NYPA can access more favorable financing. It also owns and builds transmission lines, allowing it to plan for both energy generation and distribution at the same time, she said. NYPA is also required to provide utility bill credits to low- and moderate-income households for any clean energy produced from its projects.

Beyond building more clean energy, the state should also take steps to ease growing power demand, including strengthening building efficiency standards and accelerating the installation of heat pumps, said Michael Gerrard, faculty director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School.

That includes addressing the rapid growth of crypto mining and AI electricity use and its effects on residents, said DeRoche. State officials noted that those rising energy demands have made it far more difficult to reach clean energy targets. But agencies have policy tools available to understand and reduce unabated growth — and they should start with making sure that discounted electricity rates for cryptocurrency and AI companies aren’t being subsidized by residents, DeRoche said.

Offshore wind’s uncertain future

Any effort to accelerate New York’s adoption of clean energy will need to grapple with challenges in the offshore wind sector, a cornerstone of the state’s strategy that is likely to face even more setbacks under the incoming Trump administration.

New York aims to install 9 gigawatts of offshore wind power by 2035, but in the past four years, inflation, high interest rates, and supply-chain issues led developers to pull out of contracts in the state.

That challenging economic environment is now improving, however, according to Atin Jain, an offshore wind analyst at the energy consulting firm BloombergNEF. As inflation has started to ease and interest rates have begun to come down, ​“We have probably passed the worst of it,” Jain said. State officials have been quick to respond to the industry’s economic pressures, he added, expediting auctions to renegotiate previous agreements and adding language in contracts to allow for inflation adjustments.

Two new projects, Sunrise Wind and Empire Wind 1, with 924 and 810 megawatts of capacity, respectively, are currently moving forward in New York. The 132-megawatt South Fork Wind farm went live in March off the coast of Long Island.

But Trump’s reelection casts a new uncertainty over the industry. Trump has vowed to stop offshore wind development ​“on day one” and to ​“terminate” the Inflation Reduction Act. If those declarations end up translating to real policy, then offshore wind, which relies heavily on federal tax credits and requires federal approval and permits to build and operate, could suffer — in New York and beyond.

Still, New York has enshrined a legal mandate to decarbonize its economy — meaning no matter the headwinds, the state has an obligation to follow through, DeRoche said. 

“We hear from the governor that the CLCPA is the nation’s leading climate law,” said DeRoche. ​“Well, it’s only the nation’s leading climate law if we’re implementing it.”